US lawmakers have finally agreed on a coronavirus relief package to help struggling businesses and workers, but President Donald Trump has criticized it, calling on the bill to give Americans larger stimulus checks.
Shortly after the bill was passed, Trump signaled that he might not sign the document, calling the $600 stimulus checks “ridiculously low” and demanding to increase the amount to $2,000 per person or $4,000 for a couple.
RT’s Boom Bust sat down with author and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Richard Wolff, to discuss the Covid-19 relief package. He noted that the situation looks like a political game of taking credit for larger sums, as Trump has been part of the negotiations for months.
“Here is the irony of it all... The lost jobs, the lost income, the used-up savings mean that whether you give people a one-shot $600 or you give them a one-shot $2,000 – it’s not adequate to deal with the economic problems that we have,” he said. “That’s shameful here, that the real solution is not even in discussion by the two parties that control our politics.”
He further added that some foreign aid provisions of the bill that Trump wants to remove are necessary to support good relations with the rest of the world – the task at which his administration has failed.
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